Karpilov, Yuri Solomonovich

He graduated from Kazan Agricultural Institute (KSHI) in 1953. In 1953-54, he worked as a correspondent for the republican newspapers of the Tatar Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic in Tetyushi ; in 1954-56, he worked as the first secretary of the Tetyushsky district committee of the Komsomol. In 1957 he entered the full-time department of the graduate school of the Kazan Agricultural Institute. The widespread introduction of corn into Soviet agriculture in the late 1950s served as an incentive to study the photosynthetic metabolism of this particular plant. Karpilov was able to apply the latest “ labeled ” carbon method at that time thanks to his collaboration with the Laboratory of Biophysics at KSU , then headed by I. A. Tarchevsky . Studying the effect of reducing the leaf surface of the plant and the level of nitrogen nutrition on the photosynthesis and productivity of maize, Yu. S. Karpilov discovered in maize a previously unknown method of carbon fixation during photosynthesis, different from the Calvin cycle . In the process of corn photosynthesis, the primary products were compounds containing 4 carbon atoms ( malic and aspartic acids). The first report on the discovery was the publication in 1960 in the Proceedings of the Kazan Agricultural Institute ^[1] . After graduating from graduate school, Yu. S. Karpilov worked at the KSHI as an assistant and continued to study the process he had discovered, and in 1962 he defended his thesis on “The Effect of Decreasing Assimilation Area and Nitrogen-Phosphorus Nutrition Conditions at the Beginning of the Vegetation Period on Some Physiological Processes and Yield corn. " In 1961, at the V International Biochemical Congress in Moscow, he reported to the scientific community the results of his research, but it was perceived with great distrust and skepticism, since it contradicted the theory of photosynthesis set forth in the works of M. Calvin , who had recently received the Nobel Prize ^[2] . Finding no support, Yu. S. Karpilov was forced to leave for Tiraspol in 1962, where until 1972 he worked as head of the laboratory for isotopes and biochemistry of photosynthesis at the Moldavian Research Institute of Irrigated Agriculture and Vegetable Production (MNIIOZiO). In these years, he showed that many other plants possess this type of photosynthesis. In 1972, Yu. S. Karpilov defended his doctoral dissertation at Kazan University, mainly devoted to the study of cooperative photosynthesis. Since 1972, he worked at the Institute of Photosynthesis of the Academy of Sciences of the USSR ( Pushchino ), since 1974 he was the head of the carbon metabolism laboratory, during this period he studied the mechanism of photorespiration, a physiological process that significantly affects the productivity and productivity of many crops.

Tragically died in a traffic accident in 1977.

The main works of Yu. S. Karpilov in the field of studying the mechanisms of plant photosynthesis and respiration.

• Yu. S. Karpilov: scientist and man: fav. works; Memoirs of Yu. S. Karpilov. / Yu. S. Karpilov; Institute of Funds. Problems of Biology RAS / Ed. K. Ya. Bilya et al. - Pushchino — Moscow: NIA — Priroda, 2007. - 338 p. - ISBN 978-5-9562-0069-8 .